ZFS advice on a new Omnios+Napp-it backup server

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

dirk adamsky

New Member
Apr 24, 2012
14
0
1
Hello all,

i am building a new low power, low cost backupserver.
This build will consist of the following hardware:
1. Asrock c2550d4i mainboard with 2 x 8GB mem and 12 SATA
2. Toshiba PA4293E-1HN0 3TB harddisk 6 pieces
3. 12 bay 2u case (https://ri-vier.eu/rivier-2u-12bay-chassis-with-sas-backplane-rvs206a-p-323.html?cPath=1_3_5)
4. Seasonic 250 Watt power supply
5. Sandisk Ultra 32 GB USB3 sticks (2 pieces in mirror)

Software will be Omnios + napp-it on the USB mirror (better use the 12 SATA slots for datasets).
Yesterday i have tested the napp-it usb mirror in a HP N54 microserver.
It worked. After formatting and slicing the second stick i could build the mirror.
Resilvering took 20 minutes or so.

I do have some questions about the final setup:

a. what is the best layout for the 6 3TB disks? Personally i am thinking about one 6 disk RaidZ2 volume, but maybe 3 2 disk mirrorsets are better... The purpose of the server is backups only, so no vm storage etc.
b. can i disable synchronous writes on the backup server for more performance or does that ruin the data integrity?
The server will be used in a datacenter with UPS and Generators.
c. the c2550d4i has 2 Gbit ports (and 1 ipmi port). I want to trunk the 2 ports for more speed and redundancy, both ports will be put in 2 unmanaged interconnected Zyxel Gbit switches (so no lacp). Is that a valid network setup?

Thank you in advance for your advice.

Regards,

Dirk Adamsky
 
Last edited:

dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
610
79
28
If it's mostly write traffic with no big random IOPS reqs, go with the 6 disk raidz2. If power loss is not an issue, by all means disable sync. If this is for backups only, even if you lose power during a backup run, you can delete any backup images being written and re-do them. For sync NFS writes, performance will suck badly otherwise...
 

wildchild

Active Member
Feb 4, 2014
389
57
28
Hey dirk, nice to see you here too :)
The sc836 is running perfect, thanks again ?